Data Files for "Arranged Cohabitation among Chinese Muslims"

Data from the 2007 Developmental Idealism survey conducted in Gansu
province in China's northwestern borderlands reveal that Muslims of
the Hui and Dongxiang ethnicities reported much higher rates of
cohabitation experience than the secular majority Han. Based on follow-up
qualitative interviews, we found the answer to lie in the interplay
between the highly interventionist Chinese state and the robust cultural
resilience of local Islamic communities. Using the 2000 census data and
the 2010 China Family Panel Studies data, we further show that women in
almost all ten Muslim ethnic groups have higher percentages of underage
births and premarital births than Han women, both nationally and in the
northwest where most Chinese Muslims live. As the once-outlawed behavior
of cohabitation became more socially acceptable during the reform and
opening-up era, young Muslim Chinese often found themselves in “arranged
cohabitations” as de facto marriages formed at younger-than-legal ages.